A new religion: Football caught on early and became Texas' passion

Snow flurries ushered in Thanksgiving of 1900, but North Texans
set out by horseback, buggy and train to honor traditions, old and
new.

Church, turkey and football.

The last was a national phenomenon. But here in football's
future Mecca, the fledgling sport was embroiled in holy debate.

Both sides claimed God's will.

Thanksgiving eve's Dallas Morning News had brought word from
Denton, where Southern Methodist district conference delegates
voted to abolish football in church-controlled schools.

The Dallas Pastors Association's resolution passed unanimously,
according to The News, "with several amens after."

Whereas, The tendency of football as now played is to occupy too
much of the time and thought of the students engaged in playing
football, and

Whereas, The game is dangerous to life and limb, oftentimes
resulting in death, and

Whereas, The tendency of the game is to hold up before our young
men a false ideal of manhood, placing brawn above brain and
physical before moral courage . ...

But perhaps by providence, North Texas' most influential man of
cloth wasn't Methodist. He was Hudson Stuck, dean of Dallas'
Episcopal Church of St. Matthew. London-born Stuck loved rugby and
its American derivative, football.

Stuck was an 1889 theology graduate of Sewanee, an early college
football power. He came to Dallas in 1894 and within a year formed
a football team at St. Matthew's Grammar School.

Days after the Methodists' vote to ban football, Stuck penned a
rebuttal essay for The News. "Zealots," he wrote, had caused
"uneasiness in the minds of many Dallas parents whose sons are
addicted to this form of exercise.

"For the healthy boy who plays the game under expert direction
there is surely no finer sport," Stuck contended. "And it is beyond
question that where football has injured one boy, it has helped
thousands."

State of mind

So how did football take root and spread like ivy over the next
110 years, meshing with and often dominating North Texas' cultural
landscape?

Why has football produced more revered, critiqued and polarizing
North Texas personalities than politics, business, religion and the
arts combined?

How could a mere sport seemingly generate most of its region's
landmark dates, indelible moments, sense of civic pride and
emotional letdowns? Why football, of all sports?

"I honestly think a lot of it has to do with the mentality of
people living in this part of the United States," says Baylor coach
Art Briles, who grew up 200 miles west of Fort Worth in Rule, and
whose daughter Jancy is the Cowboys' media relations
coordinator.

"We certainly like to think of ourselves as grinders, tough
mentally and physically. Football seems to have those
ingredients."

The historic backdrop and $1.2 billion Cowboys Stadium, Jerry
Jones' opulent shrine to football obsession, make North Texas a
logical host for Super Bowl XLV.

And overdue. After all, the sport's ultimate game was given its
name four decades ago by one of North Texas' many national football
institutions, Lamar Hunt of Dallas.

But at what point after the 1900 controversy did football embed
in North Texans' minds and hearts and seep into their way of life,
passing generation to generation?

Legendary sportswriter Dan Jenkins reckons that if there's a
North Texas football gene or virus or predilection, his generation
was born with it. In Jenkins' case, that was on Dec. 2, 1929, in
Fort Worth.

"I think it started back in the '20s, and I think there are a
couple of reasons," he says. "One, the oil boom. Two, we didn't
have Major League Baseball, which was the king of the world at that
time.

"So college and high school football were our major league. We
grew up with it. It had a foothold, and it's just kept on keeping
on."

The same can be said of Texas and Texans in general, but this
quadrant of the state attained the greatest football prominence,
regionally and nationally.

Timing and geography were major factors. In 1900, Dallas and
Fort Worth had 42,639 and 26,688 residents, respectively.

But as Texas evolved from an agrarian state to petroleum,
discoveries of vast oilfields to the west, north and east made
Dallas-Fort Worth a railroad and pipeline hub, sparking booms in
population and wealth.

Texas Christian University moved its campus and football team
from Waco to Fort Worth in 1910. Even the Methodists found football
religion, opening the SMU campus and creating a team the same year,
1915.

Just 40 miles apart, Dallas and Fort Worth developed separate
football personalities and traditions. But together, Dallas-Fort
Worth became a force on America's football landscape, which had
been East Coast and West Coast dominated.

"There's no question that the two fed off each other and helped
each other," Jenkins says of Dallas and Fort Worth, which now are
the No. 9 and No. 17 most-populated cities in the country.
"Rivalries are great."

A seminal event in North Texas football history occurred in
1935, when sportswriters from around the county flocked to Fort
Worth for what Grantland Rice of the New York Sun labeled "The Game
of the Century."

SMU defeated "Slingin' Sammy" Baugh and TCU that day, 20-14. But
three years later, it was the Horned Frogs and Heisman Trophy
winner Davey O'Brien who broke through to win the Associated Press
national title.

SMU returned to national prominence behind Heisman Trophy winner
and Highland Park product Doak Walker in the late 1940s. Home games
were moved to the Cotton Bowl, which was dubbed "The House That
Doak Built."

By then, Texas and Oklahoma were well into their eight-decade
tradition of meeting at the Cotton Bowl, about halfway between the
state university campuses.

"The Dallas-Fort Worth area has always been a cradle of the
great football tradition in the state of Texas," Longhorns coach
Mack Brown says. "The roots of high school football run very deep
there - with outstanding players and coaches.

"It's impossible to rank which area [in Texas] is the best, but
I will say there is none better than that.

"When you look at the long legacy of the Texas-Oklahoma game and
the heritage of men such as Bobby Layne, Doak Walker and Tom
Landry, the area's history covers every level of excellence in
football, from high school, through college and into the
professional game."

NFL arrives

Actually, the NFL's first venture into North Texas fizzled. The
Dallas Texans started the 1952 season here but were equally woeful
on the field and at the gate.

The Texans' last two "home" games were moved to Detroit and
Akron, Ohio, leaving behind a double-lesson for any owner brazen
enough to bring pro football to North Texas in the future.

First, high school and college football were as ensconced as the
dirt on North Texas' flat terrain. Second, if pro football ever
returned, it had better be with a product that savvy fans in these
parts could be proud of.

Homer B. Johnson could attest to both points. Born in Frisco in
1927, Johnson was a typical North Texas, Great Depression kid.

His father J.M. was a gas pipeliner, so Homer lived in various
North Texas towns until first grade, when he was sent to live with
his grandmother in Frisco.

She ran a boarding home in which Frisco High's coach, Don Helms,
resided. Homer became Coach Helm's tagalong, to football practices,
church and errands in Dallas.

Many fathers of that era worked multiple jobs, so it wasn't
unusual that yet another mentor, Herbert Minga, Frisco's Methodist
preacher, took Homer to see his first college game at SMU's Ownby
Stadium.

"We got over there, and he didn't have enough money to get us
in," Johnson recalls. "The field had an old board fence around it,
so he let me on his shoulders to watch the game. I'd tell him what
was going on."

Eight-year-old Homer was smitten for life. "If there was a game
being played, I wanted to see it," he says.

While starting at center for Garland High from 1942-44, Johnson
hitchhiked to Ownby Stadium and sold seat pillows to gain entry
into SMU games.

Since Garland mostly played on Fridays, Johnson and teammates
would hitchhike to Thursday night Dallas ISD games at P.C. Cobb
Stadium, a 22,000-seat facility built in 1939 under the New Deal's
Works Progress Administration program.

After playing at North Texas State, 20-year-old Johnson became
Garland High's backfield coach in 1948. When offered the chance to
also be the head baseball coach, he was thrilled.

"I was going to make this the baseball capital of the world," he
says. But when the Owls won the regional baseball title to advance
to the state tournament, Johnson says only four fans watched.

"It doesn't take you long to realize around this part of the
country that if you want to make any money, it better be on
football," Johnson chuckles.

Johnson was Garland's head football coach from 1958 to 1963 and
has been Garland ISD's athletic director ever since. Garland's
Homer B. Johnson Stadium reminds its namesake of old P.C. Cobb,
which was demolished in the late 1970s.

During a tour of Frisco's facilities a few years ago, Johnson
was shown a photo of Frisco's 1937 team. "Homer!" someone else
exclaimed. "Isn't that you?"

Sure enough, there he was as an 10-year-old waterboy, wearing
Frisco's No. 77, the number made famous by that era's star pro
player, Red Grange.

"I don't think there's anyone in the picture alive except me,"
Johnson says. "A lot has changed around here, but one thing never
will. Football is king."

A new culture

When pro football returned to North Texas in 1960, Jenkins
helped chronicle it.

That was the debut season not only of the NFL Cowboys but also
of the Hunt-owned Dallas Texans of the league he co-founded, the
AFL.

"They were kind of laughable, both teams," Jenkins says.
"Football was certainly already big here, if not just as big. But
the Cowboys did bring a new cult with them, a new group of
fans.

"Most of 'em hadn't been to college."

Hunt moved the Texans to Kansas City in 1963, though he remained
a lifelong Dallasite and worked with Cowboys president Tex Schramm
to negotiate the NFL-AFL merger of 1970.

By then, the Cowboys were annual title contenders. Houston had
the Oilers and perhaps the best high school talent in the
neighboring Golden Triangle of Beaumont-Port Arthur-Orange, but the
Cowboys' rise to national prominence cemented North Texas as the
state's football capital.

Regionally, the Cowboys' fan base included not only Dallas and
Fort Worth, but also their affluent suburbs and surrounding small
towns. Generations had grown up playing in or attending college
games and high school playoffs at the Cotton Bowl.

"The Cowboys prospered at a time when the Southwest Conference
was falling apart and before the Texas Rangers were anything,"
Jenkins says. "If the Rangers had been as good as they are now, the
Cowboys would have had some competition on the sports pages and in
people's interest."

Besides, the Rangers didn't move from Washington to Arlington
until 1972. And the NBA's Mavericks weren't born until 1980. By
then, Cowboys fans were beyond emotionally invested.

"As a kid, I remember playing football in the front yard and
running into the house and watching Bart Starr score that winning
touchdown [for Green Bay] in the '67 Ice Bowl," says Baylor's
Briles, who was 12 then.

"Haven't gotten over it yet."

High school debut

In 1900, the 37-year-old Stuck couldn't have fathomed what would
become of his beloved football in North Texas.

He might not have been the Father of North Texas football, but
he certainly was an early shepherd.

St. Matthew's was among dozens of high school teams that cropped
up around the state, no doubt spurred by the football debuts at the
University of Texas in 1893 and A&M in 1894. High school
opponents included businesses, medical schools and college junior
varsities.

The first documented game between Texas public schools was
Dallas High vs. Waco in 1900. But on Jan. 29, 1898, St. Matthew's
defeated Forney's Lewis Academy, 4-0, on the Dallas fair grounds.
The $34.75 gate revenue was donated to a statewide effort to erect
a monument to Sul Ross, the former Texas governor and Texas A&M
president who died weeks earlier.

"Football," Stuck wrote in his 1900 News editorial, "is
incomparably the one game that requires not only skill, not only
strength, but courage - that quality which in the bright lexicon of
youth is known as 'grit.' "

Stuck was a Dallasite for only 10 years, departing in 1904 to go
to Alaska as Archdeacon of the Yukon. Perhaps his last
football-related role here was hosting the Sewanee team when it
lost to Texas, 11-0, on Oct. 10, 1902, at the Fair Ground.

History remembers Stuck as a visionary, activist and pioneer,
but not in a football sense.

In Dallas, he is best known for founding a school for orphans, a
home for elderly women, the first night school - and for his public
crusade that helped lead to the passing of Texas' first child labor
laws.

It was only later that he earned international acclaim when he
co-led the first successful climb of North America's highest peak.
The News' June 21, 1913, headline read:

"Former Dallas Man Climbs Mt. McKinley."

AREA FOOTBALL TIMELINE

1890 25 members of Dallas YMCA form a football club.

1891 Dallas and Fort Worth form football clubs. Dallas claims
state title with Christmas Day victory over Tyler.

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